The Trembling Hills

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “See what you make of this,” she said to Sara.

  Opening the tissue on the table before her, Sara found that it contained a handsome tortoise-shell comb. The shell was a smoky amber color, touched with traces of golden light. The prongs of the comb were long and into the spread of the fanlike back had been set a pattern of rhinestones.

  “How beautiful!” Sara said in a hushed voice. “It’s a Spanish comb, isn’t it?”

  Aunt Hester nodded. “You can catch only a glimpse of it in the painting because of the mantilla. But it is the comb she was wearing when she posed for her portrait.”

  Sara touched the satiny smoothness of the tortoise shell and the stones sparkled as she turned the comb.

  “Consuelo’s comb! Aunt Hester, was it truly hers?”

  “I’ve just told you so,” said Miss Varady, but she looked pleased at Sara’s respectful reaction. “I hoped that you might value it. That comb has been in the family through generations. But I did not choose to give it to Geneva.”

  “How I’d love to wear it,” Sara mused. “How I’d love to dress up in a mantilla.”

  “Yes, you are the type. All that black hair, your dark eyes and olive skin. I too was the type when I was younger. My sister Elizabeth was not.”

  There was scorn in her tone as she spoke of her sister and Sara remembered what Mrs. Renwick had told her —that Elizabeth had run off with the man who was engaged to marry Hester Varady. She wondered if her aunt could ever be brought to talk about her sister, Sara’s grandmother.

  “What was Elizabeth like?” Sara ventured.

  For a moment she thought Miss Varady might not answer. This was an old hurt, an old anger, yet clearly it still had the power to wound. Hester Varady had never forgiven.

  “As a matter of fact, Elizabeth was much like Geneva,” she said at length. “Too soft, too gentle, too pallid.”

  Nevertheless, thought Sara, Martin Bishop had chosen Elizabeth in preference to Hester.

  Miss Varady said nothing more of Elizabeth and they were both silent as they left the dining room. Hester spoke only when she ordered the coachman to drive back to the office. There she left Sara, without any word concerning the future. Sara thanked her for the comb and the luncheon, and went into the office, again baffled and a little disappointed.

  Ritchie stood at Miss Dalrymple’s desk and the reedy young file clerk hovered in the background, his ears fairly stretched from his head. All three looked at her as she came in and Sara braced herself, fearing for a moment that Ritchie might be as displeased about what had happened as Nick had seemed.

  But Ritchie’s eyes were dancing. He turned to her desk and pulled out her chair in an exaggerated gesture.

  “If you please, Miss Bishop! May I sharpen your pencils, Miss Bishop? May I pick up your handkerchief, Miss Bishop? To think we’ve been harboring an heiress of one of San Francisco’s best families all this time! Sara, why didn’t you confide in me—the old friend of your childhood?”

  He was clowning, of course, but she sensed an excitement in him, knew that he was surprised and more than a little impressed.

  “I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t know,” she said. “Not until a few weeks ago. And you mustn’t leap to conclusions. I’m not anybody’s heiress.”

  “You will be!” Ritchie cried. “I can see that poor Geneva may be left quite out in the cold.”

  Nick spoke quietly from the door of his office. “I’m sure that Geneva will be well taken care of.”

  Ritchie waved a careless hand in his direction. “No offense, Nick. It’s just that I can’t imagine a dramatic old girl like Miss Varady leaving the bulk of her fortune to Geneva when there’s someone like Sara on the family tree. Sara might even live up to the colorful Varady tradition.”

  Sara glanced uncomfortably at Nick. He must feel that she had deliberately deceived them, and she wished she could explain the truth to him. But it wasn’t possible with everyone gaping and listening.

  Ritchie perched himself on a corner of Sara’s desk. “This is one day when I’ll certainly knock off early. I can’t wait to get home and drop this bombshell. What a stir it will make! To think that the Renwicks, who can’t hold a candle socially to the Varadys, are harboring a Varady heiress under their roof.”

  “I would suggest,” Nick said, and Sara had never heard his tones so clipped, “that you say nothing at all at home until Sara herself chooses to tell the others.”

  “Oh, come now—” Ritchie began.

  Nick went curtly on. “I mean that. This is only a matter of fun for you, Ritchie. But I am wondering how it will affect Mrs. Jerome. Will you come into my office for a moment, Miss—Bishop? I imagine you’d like to tell us a bit more about this. You too, Ritchie, if you will.”

  They left the curious file clerk and Miss Dalrymple to struggle with unsatisfied curiosity. Following Nick meekly to his office, Sara felt more like a schoolgirl who had been caught cheating at her exams, than like an heiress.

  Nick gave her the chair opposite his roll-top desk, while Ritchie lounged against a bookcase. Nick stood at the window, staring out into the street, not looking at Sara, but obviously waiting for her to speak.

  Sara, having somehow been put in a position of guilt, began to grow faintly indignant. She told her story in as few words as possible.

  “I don’t know what became of my father,” she concluded stiffly. “Mama made me promise to tell none of you about my San Francisco connection. When she found that Geneva was Miss Varady’s niece, she was terribly upset. Her feeling seemed unreasonable to me, but I was bound by my promise. However, I’d made no promise not to see Miss Varady if she sent for me. I don’t see why I must be blamed for this.”

  “I’m beginning to understand.” Nick spoke more kindly as he turned from the window. “This is a strange situation, but I can see that you would, under the circumstances, be helpless to deal with it in any other way. We must consider your mother’s feelings, however, and that means Ritchie had better not blurt the news out impulsively when he gets home. Will you agree to wait, Ritchie?”

  “I suppose I’ll have to,” Ritchie said and Sara was startled by the resentment in his tone. She had not realized that Ritchie so disliked Nicholas Renwick.

  “It’s right that I should talk to Mama first,” she told Ritchie gently. “Perhaps I can make this a little easier for her. I don’t know why she is so disturbed by this connection with the Varadys.”

  “I shall,” Ritchie promised lightly, “be as silent as the grave. Once your mother has been told, however, you might give me the fun of springing it on the others.”

  Nick ignored Ritchie’s notion of fun. “There are further matters to be considered,” he said to Sara. “Just what are your plans for the future? I presume you will be leaving this office, leaving our house?”

  “I haven’t any plans.” Sara shook her head helplessly. “My aunt has made no suggestions of any kind. Will you let me keep on with my work here? And of course not make any change just now at the house?”

  “If you wish it that way,” said Nick.

  Sara rose from her chair. “I’ll go back and type those letters—” She started toward the door, but Nick’s voice stopped her and he was smiling in the old, friendly way.

  “I know this is exciting and perhaps a little frustrating to you just now. But I’m glad you’re willing to go right on with your everyday affairs. That’s the best way to keep your balance.”

  “What else can I do?” said Sara, and went back to her desk.

  It was difficult, however, to concentrate on her work for the rest of the afternoon. She ignored, but could not forget the continued interest of her companions in the office. Her thoughts kept returning to the luncheon with her aunt. Once, when she had a moment to herself, she unwrapped the Spanish comb to re-examine it. Never had she possessed such a treasure.

  From ti
me to time she worried about the coming interview with her mother. In her mind she tried first this way of telling her, then that. No plan seemed easy and she no longer looked forward to the coming of evening.

  Ritchie was true to his word and the Renwick house was as calm as usual when Sara got home. Allison followed Sara up to her room, with Comstock padding lithely after her, but the child was brimming with her own affairs and knew nothing of Sara’s secret.

  “Sara,” she announced the minute they were in the tower room, “I have something to tell you. But you must cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die you won’t tell.”

  Sara made the required sign. “What is it?”

  “The grocer’s boy likes me!” said Allison. “Today when he carried the potatoes down cellar I waited for him to come up. And he looked at me. He really did. And he said, ‘Oh, you kid!’ before he went out to his wagon. Don’t you think that’s significant, Sara?”

  Sara managed a sober expression. “Yes, of course. Very significant. But isn’t he a little old for you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Allison airily. “I expect he’s fourteen. But I think my bangs and my new dresses make me look older, don’t you, Sara? Bernard really looked surprised when he saw me today.”

  “Were you—doing anything special when he saw you?”

  “Not really. Of course I did have one of Ritchie’s cigarettes in my fingers. I wasn’t going to smoke it, but I’m sure I looked as if I might any minute.”

  Sara no longer felt like smiling. She gave the little girl a quick hug. “Don’t count too much on Bernard, honey. The people who like you won’t do it because you astonish them. You do look very nice these days and we’re all proud of you.”

  Allison’s sigh was the long one of youth. “Someday I’ll be grown up. Then everything will be wonderful.”

  Sara did not add that she’d better not count on that either.

  Not until her mother was free from her work, did Sara seek her out. Then she went into her room and offered to brush her hair.

  Mrs. Jerome surprised her. “Never mind the hair-brushing, Sara. Tell me what is troubling you. I’ve seen your concern all through dinner. What has happened?”

  At least this made it easier. Her mother wore the braced look which meant she must prepare herself for the worst.

  Sara plunged in at once. “I know who Hester Varady is. I’ve seen her. She sent Geneva to bring me to her house Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. And today she came to the office and took me to lunch at the Palace Hotel. She told Nick who I am. I’m sorry this has to be such a shock to you. I didn’t expect it would come out like this.”

  Her mother had seated herself to remove her shoes. At Sara’s first words she paused, a shoe in one hand. Her eyes did not leave Sara’s face. She uttered no protest, however. It was as if she had dreaded this for so long, suffered its possibilities for so many years, that now she had no emotion left to deal with the moment when it came. The shoe dropped from her hand and she leaned back in the chair.

  Sara knelt beside her, put her arms about her mother’s slight body. “You mustn’t worry, Mama. Surely this is the best way for us both. If Papa left an inheritance that should be ours, then there isn’t any reason why we should live as we do. You can have a home and luxuries. Nice clothes. And I can—I can be somebody.”

  Mrs. Jerome spoke without emotion. “Hester Varady will not give you one penny unless she buys your soul in the bargain.”

  “Oh, Mama, that’s melodramatic—buying souls! Besides, she hasn’t asked anything at all of me. All she did was to give me Consuelo Olivero’s Spanish comb as a gift. For the time being nothing is changed. We’ll go on just as we are.”

  “She won’t leave it at that,” her mother said. “She can build the most fantastic plots. She’s cooking something up right now, you can be sure of it. Something to destroy us both.”

  Sara sat back on her heels. “She doesn’t want to destroy me. She likes me. She likes me better than she does Geneva, in fact.”

  “Sara”—her mother leaned forward and clasped thin fingers about her daughter’s wrist—“who is Geneva Varady? Where did she get the name? There’s no possible connection she can be descended from. Believe me, I know that family tree as well as I know my own face. It was preached at me again and again in the years I lived in that terrible house. There can’t be anyone named Geneva Varady.”

  Sara moved from her mother’s grasp. “I don’t see how that matters to us. The important thing is that you mustn’t believe Hester Varady can take me away from you. I’ve already told her that what happens to me happens to you too. We stay together, no matter what.”

  Her mother looked at her for a long moment. “I’m glad you feel that way. My only wish is to stand between you and something which might injure you. Perhaps between you and yourself, Sara. You are a strong-willed young woman, but to be strong-willed is not always to be strong.”

  She held out her hand and as Sara put her own in her mother’s the words seemed to echo through her mind. There was something in them she would need to think about.

  13

  It was Nick, after all, who told the family quietly the next night at the dinner table, before Ritchie had a chance to dramatize the situation. Later in the evening Sara had a full report of what happened from an enraptured Allison.

  Even Mrs. Renwick had chosen to dine with the family that night, so they were all there. In turn Allison mimicked the reaction of each person at the table, and Sara, bubbling with laughter, could see the picture.

  Mrs. Renwick’s first thought had apparently been of the news she would now have for Miss Millie Matson. This was something that she would know, for once, before the gossipy little dressmaker. Imagine having Varady relatives working here in her own house! If only William could have known about this, having been so richly snubbed by Hester Varady!

  Judith, however, Allison reported, had been no more than coolly amused. The revelation seemed not to matter to her very much, one way or another.

  “Except,” Allison said, “that she kept watching Ritchie in a funny sort of way. Of course Ritchie thinks it’s wonderful, just like I do. You really are a princess in disguise, Sara. Comstock, bow to the princess. Pay your respects.”

  Comstock, in Allison’s lap, his tail curled about him, gave his mistress’s hand a cuff, like a mother chiding a child, and yawned in Sara’s face. Of all the household, Comstock was the least impressed by Sara’s Varady blood.

  Geneva’s reaction had been one of pleased surprise. If any concern about sharing her inheritance entered her mind, she had apparently not revealed it. Allison, who had little patience with Jenny-Geneva, being jealous of her interest in Nick, nevertheless seemed to understand how she felt.

  “I guess she grew up lonely in that old house. And now she might have another girl there for company. I think she likes that.”

  Sara was touched. She had been drawn to Geneva from the first, even though they were so different. Now she was anxious to see her alone, so they might acknowledge this newly found relationship.

  She had the opportunity a few days later when she was arranging flowers for the dining room. This pleasant duty Judith had lately delegated entirely to Sara. It was fun, Sara discovered, to create new effects with unusual combinations of color and form. Today she was working with geraniums—scorned for indoor use, since they were so common in this climate. But Sara found that rose geraniums with their accompanying leaves could be effective in a black vase. Set on the sideboard they would dispel the gloom of the dining room. The pungent odor of the plants pleased her as she snipped and arranged.

  Geneva, glancing in the door, saw her and smiled uncertainly.

  “Come in and talk to me,” Sara invited.

  Geneva looked pleased as she came into the room. “Isn’t it exciting, Sara? Our being cousins, I mean. Of course Aunt Hester hasn’t said anything to me a
s yet. She doesn’t know that Nick told us at dinner the other night. I wasn’t even aware there was such a person as Leland Bishop. Aunt Hester has told me so little. I’ve never had a close relative except my great-aunt. Certainly not anyone near my own age. I’m twenty-two, Sara. How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty,” Sara told her, feeling that she was in reality years older than Geneva.

  “Do you suppose you’ll come to live at our house now?” Geneva asked. “I do hope you’ll come soon. It’s such a lonesome place. If it weren’t for Nick and visiting here, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “Aunt Hester hasn’t invited us to live with her,” Sara said, her hands busy among blooms spread over newspaper on the sideboard. “So I’m glad you come here often. What a good thing it is that she hasn’t opposed your going out with Nick.”

  “She didn’t like it at all in the beginning,” said Geneva.

  “And you stood up to Aunt Hester?” Sara regarded her with new interest.

  “Well, no. Not exactly. I just behaved like water.”

  “Like water? What do you mean?”

  “Have you ever read the Chinese philosophers?” Geneva asked.

  Sara shook her head. She liked to read, but she knew little of China or its philosophy.

  “I wouldn’t have learned about them myself if it hadn’t been for Ah Foong,” Geneva went on. “I found there had been English translations of some of the great teachers he talked about. This man, Laotse, believed in what he called the strength of the weak. He wrote that water is gentle and soft. It escapes through your fingers when you try to pick it up. But water, gently dripping, can wear away a rock.”

  Sara listened in delight. “No wonder Nick is so fond of you,” she said impulsively.

  The flush that swept Geneva’s cheeks was almost painful. “Do you really believe he is? Nick’s so far beyond anything I can ever live up to.”

  “Don’t be so humble,” Sara said. “No man’s as impressive as all that. And it’s obvious that he’s very fond of you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found yourself getting married before Judith and Ritchie.”